Afghani rape victim freed from jail, on condition she marry rapist

That's a good question.

But I'm not sure that hanging socially unacceptable discrimination on religion saves it, at least not for me. Didn't we used to use the Bible to justify slavery? And we use it now to justify discrimination against gays.

 

The answer is obvious. The U.S. has the power to project the Western ideas of morality on other cultures, so other societies can't. Europeans haven't been able to force the U.S. and Japan to abandon capital punishment.

Is it right to force other nations to respect your morals? That's a personal choice, but would you do business with a known and active child molester because you don't want to impose your morals on him/her? Why can't those small-scale choices be extended to the international plane?

 

There's a distinction?

 

It never ceases to amaze me that some of the same people who would advocate tolerance of these cultures that clearly discriminate and even do great physical and emotional harm to women and gays would jump at the first chance to harp on sexual harrassment in the workplace or discrimination against gays when it happens in the U.S. And last time I checked, calling a woman in the office, "baby," or telling an off-color joke in mixed company was light years away from forcing a woman to marry her rapist or an honor killing.

 

As a practical matter, yes. Political problems can usually be solved. Religious problems cannot.

 

Someone with more knowledge of history can probably weigh in on this, but was the U.S. pressured by other countries to ban slavery? Did others — foreign groups, organizations, governments — try to impose their morality on the country then (as opposed to American abolitionists)?

 

The Confederacy would have likely been recognized as a legal government by the U.K. and France if it banned slavery.

 

Exactly.

 

Are we talking about posters here, or writers out in the wider world?

 

If we're talking about posters here, I agree with Hondo. In the distinction with board members is hilarious.

 

I'm not a big fan of deciding which "crime" is worse.

The other day we debated how bad "bitch" was, and whether is was in the same league as the "N" word.

They're both wrong, and there's no reason to qualify the degree to which one is wrong by pointing out something else is worse.

Sexual harassment is wrong. It's not a joke. And, we don't need to compare it to child brides or female genital mutilation in order to lessen its substance.

And, I'm not going to tell anyone to not fight office place harassment.

But, we should also fight what's happening in the middle east.

If we're going to hold marches when a Catholic School's health services doesn't distribute birth control, can we please muster a little outrage about women being forced to marry their rapist?

And, saying we don't think our culture is "better" is no excuse.

In fact it's the opposite. If we didn't think we were better than them, we would rightly point this out to our "peers". It's only because we think they're somehow not capable of living up to societal norms that we give them a pass.

 

How?